The intensity with which the country's leading deficit hawks continue
to ignore financial speculation taxes (FST) is getting ever more
entertaining. While deficit hawks like Wall Street investment banker
Peter Peterson, Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles, and the Washington Post
never tire of preaching the virtues of shared sacrifice, somehow
sacrifice for Wall Street never features as a part of this story.

The refusal of this group to consider financial speculation taxes is
becoming more striking because most of the world appears to be moving in
this direction. Last spring, the European Parliament voted by an almost
4-to-1 margin in support of financial speculation taxes. The European
Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), is now making plans to implement a modest tax beginning in 2014.

Even with the low tax rates being considered by the commission (e.g.
0.05 percent in each side of a stock trade), it is estimated that an
EU-wide tax could bring in as much as $60 billion a year. Two of the
leading proponents of a financial speculation tax in Europe are German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy, both of
whom are leaders of the conservative parties in their countries. Still,
even liberal deficit hawks here do not want to talk about financial
speculation taxes.

We learned from Ron Suskind's new book on the making of economic
policy in the Obama Administration that a financial speculation tax was
considered at the very top levels. According to the book, Obama himself
even leaned in this direction. But the deficit hawks never discuss
financial speculation taxes.

Last week, Bill Gates added himself to the list of FST supporters. In
a report that he was asked to prepare for the G-20 on funding
development assistance he cited an FST as one possible mechanism. But the deficit hawks never discuss financial speculation taxes.

The deficit hawks manage to ignore financial speculation taxes even
when they pop up in front of their face. Two summers ago, Peter Peterson
helped to finance a lavish full day set of town halls in dozens of
communities around the country.

The town halls were supposed to come up with ways to reduce the
budget deficit after being lectured by expert deficit hawks. While cuts
to Social Security and Medicare were hugely unpopular, a financial
speculation tax was one of the most widely favored paths
for reducing the deficit. Yet, the deficit hawks never discuss
financial speculation taxes, even though they won considerable support
at their own venue.

In short, financial speculation taxes are a route to reducing
long-term deficits that has won support both among the general public
and among policy experts
and leading political figures around the world. Yet, they are somehow
excluded from discussions of the deficit in policy circles in the United
States. Could this have to do with the fact that so much of the support
for deficit reduction comes from Wall Street?

It is difficult not to believe that Wall Street's outsized role in
pushing deficit reduction has some impact on the route the debate takes.
After all, if the Farm Bureau was sponsoring most of the research on
deficit reduction and financing the campaigns of the leading deficit
hawks, it is reasonable to believe that lower farm subsidies would not
be a prominent item in debates on the deficit.

What is most remarkable in this picture is the complete failure of
the media to identify Wall Street's role in pushing this deficit
reduction agenda. For example, Erskine Bowles, who was a co-chair of
President Obama's deficit commission, is never identified as a director
of Morgan Stanley.

It is entirely possible that this role has no influence on Bowles'
views on the deficit, but it still seems that public should know about
it. If a commission member were receiving $350,000 a year from the
United Auto Workers or AFSCME, it is difficult to imagine that the media
would not include this fact as part of the commissioner's standard
identification.

The media also see little reason to balance the Wall Street influence
with people presenting an alternative perspective. For example, the Post ran a news article on the budget last week featuring the views of two people who headed Peter Peterson-funded organizations.
These views were complimented by the views of an unnamed Republican
staffer and a long-time corporate lobbyist. This was Fair and Balanced
reporting at the Post.

In sum, it is hard to understand why taxing financial speculation
never appears on the agenda of the deficit hawks or gets mentioned in
budget reporting if the issue really is deficit reduction. On the other
hand, if this is all about using an economic crisis to push a
longstanding agenda to cut Social Security and Medicare, then everything
suddenly makes sense.

Dr. Dean Baker is a macroeconomist and Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. (more...)